


No Finer Place For Sure

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan goes downtown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Finer Place For Sure

**Author's Note:**

> Written October 2007; prompt _Dan and Casey and neon lights_.

There are bad days, sad days, grey and rainy, cold and bleak. Fewer, now, than they once were, and no cause for alarm; Dan knows that, however dark the road seems before him, he'll never (now) travel so far that he can't find his way back. But still he needs to be alone, to be left alone; not to see his friends' eyes, reproach turning to anxiety, hear the chatter of their voices as they try to talk him down. He doesn't need to fend off their unwelcome concern and risk driving them away entirely; he doesn't need to be so careful of _them_ that he loses all sight of himself.

Those are days when Dan is no fit company for anyone but Dan.

There's nowhere better to hide than in plain sight, no place one's more truly alone than in a crowd. And here, in the greatest city in the world, it's easy to lose oneself, easy to be lost. So he eases the apartment door silently closed behind him, wanders aimlessly for a while till he finds himself near the subway, hops the first car to come along and lets it take him wherever it may be going.

He winds up in the very heart of town, with all its light and sound, its hustle and glitter, its tourists and tramps, thugs, bums and junkies, poets and artists and madmen and dreamers. He's anonymous here. Even in the glory days of _Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall_ he was seldom recognised in public, and now that he's no more than a face on a dustwrapper, an occasional voice on the radio, he's reverted to nonentity. Funny: fame-junkie that he used to be, nowadays he scarcely realises it's gone, still less misses it. He's learned, he supposes, how hollow it all was, finally discovered what really matters. Maybe that means he's achieved maturity. Who knows?

He's not so mature that he can't find joy in the flash and the buzz around him, in the faces and voices, the rush of traffic, the dazzle of the billboards. He stands for a long time, doing nothing: just watching, drinking in the soul of New York City.

When he tears himself away at last, his dark mood has fled. All he can think about is getting home, getting back to –

"Oh!" he says, and he pulls himself up short. He had almost cannoned into the man standing behind him. "How long've you been there?"

Casey smiles. "A while." He reaches out to take Dan by the hand. (They can do that now; they gave up whatever celebrity status they ever had for this. Now they're only Dan and Casey, Casey and Dan, and neither man feels he got the worst part of the deal.) "You finished here?"

Dan turns, leans briefly against his partner, feels the heat of Casey's blood, the spark within him brighter than any neon. "I'm done," he says, and, matching step for step, they make their way homeward together.

***


End file.
